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Do We Owe Human Rights to the Christian Right?

By Austin Dacey

…rsalism. This popular history underscores continuities between the work of today’s human rights defenders and previous citizens’ struggles for the rights of women, workers, immigrants, and formerly enslaved and colonized peoples, placing Malala Yousafzai shoulder to shoulder with Frederick Douglass and Mary Wollstonecraft. In Moyn’s narrative, human rights are no older than Generation X. The eighteenth century discourse of droits de l’homme or “ri…

Departure of the Queen

By Amina Wadud

…e where I can have bars for my cell phone and get in touch with them later today. Before the shaykh arrives, I continue with my Qur’an reading. I don’t use the tiny mp3 player anymore because this last juz’ includes most of the Qur’an that I have memorized myself, and this is more a review than a simple reflective read. Coming to the end of the Qur’an reading is also melancholy, and I forget why I felt I should rush just a few days ago. How will I…

The Atheist Encounter with Christianity: A Failure to Disbelieve?

By Paul Wallace

…c idea, is quickly discarded because it does not speak the truth about the world. A true myth survives because it resonates deeply with lived human experience. A true myth brings one face-to-face with reality and has nothing to do with literalism or the ignoring of scientific evidence. To get to my point: There is found in each of these excerpts, a disconnect between the author’s idea of Christianity and what Christianity actually is. Admittedly,…

Sikh Temple Shooting: Two Massacres and the Virtual Transformation of Trauma

By Shruti Devgan

…he community might know about the trauma only indirectly, such as Sikhs in New York taking on the wounds of their fellow community members in the small community of Oak Creek, Wisconsin, or American Sikhs speaking for the Indian victims and survivors of 1984. Admittedly, there are vast differences in the reasons for why members of the Sikh community found themselves under siege in two different contexts and times. The Wisconsin tragedy is unfoldin…

The Tense History Behind Jimmy Carter’s Liberty U. Commencement Address

By John Fea

…e decide whether we tell the truth, or benefit from telling lies. We decide, do I hate, or am I filled with love? We’re the ones who decide: do I think only about myself or do I care for others?” Carter delivered a gentle, yet powerful, exhortation to a Christian university run by one of Donald Trump’s chief evangelical surrogates. At one point during his address he identified himself as an “evangelical Christian.” At ninety-three years old, he is…

The Devil is in the Details

By Amina Wadud

…king. What is mock packing, you ask? Well, for this trip I have almost all new clothes, and I need to make sure they are sufficient for what I am about to undertake. So I tried on everything, including gifts from others. I’ve had to discard one pair of pants a gift from a friend in Indonesia, cause they are just too short on the waist and the leg (I am like a giant compared to the average Indonesian). Also those nifty dresses (or sacks) I bought t…

Americans Say Religion is “Losing Influence”

By Diane Winston

…to be a Lutheran in northern Minnesota? How has Vacation Bible School at a rural Arkansas Baptist church changed since the ’60s? Who are the women behind the biggest Methodist congregation in Cleveland? I want to know more about the people who believe religion to be a positive social good. Do they tune out the news or find ways to live in a messy both/and reality. (I am assuming not all these people are right-wingers.) I don’t want more top-down c…

Eyes on the Prize, Rainbow People! A Post-DOMA Challenge

By Peter Laarman

…d use this occasion to celebrate, modestly, today’s breakthroughs for LGBT people even as we publicly lament the losses suffered by Black America and pledge our firm solidarity in struggles against hate and injustice that are still to be won. That’s what we should say. And then we should match our words with our deeds….

Better Dead Than ‘Fed’: Behind Palin’s Dig at ‘Unbiblical’ Fed

By Julie Ingersoll

…ivil government to punishing “evildoers” and providing for defense. Reconstructionist theocracy, based on the Reconstructionists’ reading of the Bible, gives coercive authority to families and churches to organize other aspects of life. In this view—one that also meshes with Tea Party rhetoric—the Fed’s control of monetary policy is a prime example of federal government “tyranny.” North argues that the Federal Reserve is unbiblical because it usur…

The Tragedy of Religious Freedom

By Patrick Hornbeck

…ation, it would be unfair for civil courts to allow the Episcopal Church’s rules to trump state law. The breakaway diocese has appealed to the Supreme Court, which recently asked the national church to reply. In a word, all these cases are about self-determination—the capacity of a religious institution to decide for itself what it means to be complicit in what it views as sin, to legally identify as a religious institution, or to retain property…